Dems call for Rangel's gavel

After months of holding ranks, some Democrats are finally turning on House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) in the wake of an ethics committee finding that he violated House rules by accepting a Caribbean junket.

Early Friday, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) told POLITICO he wants Rangel to quit his powerful committee post — and that was quickly followed by similar statements from a pair of deep south Democrats, Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor and Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to defend Rangel, but lawmakers like Hodes are calling for Rangel’s gavel.

"I honor and respect Charlie Rangel’s lifetime of service as a soldier serving our country in Korea and as a public servant. But Washington must be held to the highest ethical standards. Regrettably, with the finding of ethics violations, Charlie Rangel should step down from his leadership position.”

Moments later, during a vote in the House, Taylor, a 10-term representative from the Gulf Coast, told POLITICO that Rangel “should step down, or at least step aside until all this is resolved.”

“The citizens of his home state sent him here, that's their decision. But members of the [Democratic Caucus] made him chairman of that committee, and he should step down until all this is resolved.”

Bright, one of the most vulnerable freshmen, agreed with Taylor.

“If the ethics committee has found he's guilty of this, then my opinion is that he should step down,” Bright said.

And Rep. Mike Quigley, Democratic freshman from Chicago's North Side who took over Rahm Emanuel's old House seat, renewed his calls for Rangel to step down as chairman.

"I learned that ethics is nonpartisan — each party should stand on its own," Quigley said in a brief interview. "The history of this place is that mistakes are made on both sides. So for any side to try to argue that they're more pure than the other is silliness."

The ethics committee news broke late Thursday, moments after Rangel left the Blair House health care summit. The ethics report, which will be released today, will admonish the Harlem Democrat for accepting payment for the Caribbean trip, while acknowledging he had no direct knowledge that false or misleading information was given to the committee in its investigation of the trips. Four other members who joined Rangel on the same junket weren’t sanctioned.

The committee is still considering several other complaints against Rangel, stemming from his use of rent-regulated apartments in New York and failing to report income on his Dominican Republic villa.

But a good number of Democrats aren’t ready to revoke Rangel’s chairmanship, even as they criticize his actions.